


Witchcraft

by Severa



Series: Self-Indulgent [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Magic, Oneshot, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severa/pseuds/Severa
Summary: Loki faces magic that confronts his deepest fears.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancientwinters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientwinters/gifts).



> For ancientwinters, who stuck with me online these last couple years. Thanks!

Galactic Gods.

Midgardian mystics.

Human heroes.

Loki understood that none of them were important to the universe. What mattered was what they had in their possession.

The stones, six strong, and their vessels.

That was why he found himself in the bowels of Midgard yet again, casting illusions to pass through their armies. Why he troubled himself with this when he could be seated on the throne of Asgard was simple - he understood the stones. He understood the danger of them unlike anyone else; unlike his fool brother, his incompetent allies, or those insufferable Avengers.

In the search for his forfeited scepter, Loki infiltrated the ranks of Hydra under the guise of one of their peons. T’was easy enough. He shifted forms as quickly as shifted rooms, changing his reality to fit theirs as not to be discovered. If he were, t’would be no matter; however, bloodshed was not in his fortune today.

Their castle was expansive. Their conversations were droll. Those of lesser rank knew very little of anything, so Loki impersonated those of higher standing. Soon, secrets spilled. Dungeons and unknown passageways were alluded to while keys were stowed away in pockets that he sooned picked. Night fell. He secreted himself through hidden doors and down an empty stairwell.

In the belly of the beast he found the remnants of his wrath.

Chitauri leviathans decorated the ceiling like chandeliers, dissected parts hanging low for the picking. Weapons of his former army lay disassembled, machines and robots built about them. Empty cells lined the far wall. A table stood centerpoint, unattended and dimly lit.

Upon it stood his scepter.

Perhaps it was this moment that distracted him from the forthcoming dangers. Seeing one’s own lost power proved to be overwhelming - moreso the promise to harness it again. The corruption that had guided him before was no more. There was no Other, no Thanos. He knew only the burning spite that guided him to destroy everything his former ruler desired.

And so he approached. He took in hand the little blue gem that had promised him the universe and felt its power burn up his arm. Soon they would be reunited into the fearsome trio that had almost destroyed this realm; Loki, the Tesseract, and his scepter. They would be guided by no man but himself.

Until this very moment, at least.

He heard the voices before he felt the magic.

“Is’it him?” one questioned.

Loki turned to find it, magic cracking in his hands as his armor gleamed over him. But it was too late.

“Yes,” the other said.

A breath of warm air rustled his hair. The world around him changed in a rush of magic that burned through his eyes, forcing him to see another’s will.

He stood in the bowels of Hel.

Its halls were longer than any in Asgard. Stone columns reached high into the vaulted ceilings, colored a sickly gray that radiated cold. A single wooden table stretched down the length of this terrible place. A matching throne, built simply and without grandeur, sat at the end of it. Everything shined against a light that didn’t seem to exist. In fact, the sconces on the columns were lit with black flames.

He recognized the wood that made it all. But how did it come to be here?

“Nidhogg,” answered a ghost.

The voice echoed off the stone, sourceless. Loki looked all around in surprise, readying himself for any attack that might find him.

In the back of his mind he heard the other spellcaster screaming from another realm.

“The dragon?” he questioned, “He who feasts upon the dead?”

“And gnaws on the roots of the World Tree. A broken piece found its way to me, little Prince-”

“King.”

“Ah, yes. Little King.”

Loki stood straight under the scrutiny of the unseen. A part of him worked at dispelling this vision. The other stood to face whatever threat it might bring.

“It glitters in your hand,” said the ghost.

Loki looked. Indeed the scepter remained, its gem glowing bright as if it were fueling this madness.

“And you are?”

“No one of importance. But I am not alone…”

“Oh?” Loki asked, stepping forward towards the throne. He assumed all power stemmed from there. “And where are you comrades in this empty hall?”

“Here.”

T'was not the ghost who spoke. T'was a voice more soothing than that, more haunting than his worst nightmares.

“Mother?”

He turned found a true ghost standing behind him. All pretenses failed. His facade crumbled. The scepter clattered to the ground and his armor disappeared in a fierce wave of grief that threatened to cripple him.

“Loki.” Frigga smiled. “My Loki…”

She touched his breast. Her fingers lingered over the golden loop in his armor that symbolized his power - uru, rarer in golden form, enchanted to support his very best illusions. A gift from her.

“Mother,” he said again.

The magic was forgotten. He saw only her as he reached out to touch her cheek. She flinched away from him and he faltered, only to realize that his hand was shocked with blue.

“Not my son.” she realized.

Loki’s heart crumbled. He tried to touch her, to reason with her and remind her of all the things she had ever told him, but she faded. Blackness spread across her cheek from his touch and she burned to ash, whisked away like dust on a breeze.

“Foolish boy!”

Loki turned and saw the Mad Titan sitting on the empty throne. The Other stood steps below him. They were laughing.

“A failure who calls himself a King.”

Panic bloomed in his chest. Knives were summoned to his hands and he threw them all, hissing curses through tears and he approached the throne. They only continued to laugh as he made pincushions of them both.

A sudden shock rang through him. Lightning brought him to his knees, wracking his body with screaming agony. Thor’s bellows followed it, curses from on high that dismissed their brotherhood and spoke of betrayals.

The spellcaster’s screams were deafening in his ears. He stood through Thor’s assault - though Thor himself was absent - and protested this torture.

“Begone!”

He lashed out with raw magic, dispelling the storm that threatened to smolder him. Thanos and his servant vanished. The throne was vacant once again.

“Begone what?” asked the ghost. “Begone me?”

A personage took claim to her voice. Shadows on the throne grew into a woman draped in black. Her robes sparkled like the night sky. They drifted around her like fabric in water, the hems wisping with strands of magic.

“Welcome to my hall, little King."

Ice seeped into Loki’s bones. It permeated the blue skin that was meant to shield him from all cold, if it was good for nothing else, and he found himself without a voice. Death was present and he had cheated her too many times.

“Is it time to die?” she asked.

Her face was a shadow that changed as easily as he shifted his skin. In her he saw his mother. He saw his father, blue and cruel; he saw Odin, wise and misguided; he saw Thor and every comrade he had ever called to his side. He saw every life he had ever taken. And finally, he saw himself in the form of a smiling woman.

“Oh, little King, how small you are… and yet the only man to ever evade me so gracefully.”

She stood down from her throne. Lady Loki smiled as a crown of golden horns grew out from her skin, arching above her head as Death’s hood fell down around her shoulders. Loki himself could still hear the forgotten spellcaster screaming. If he couldn’t break away from this vision, neither would she.

“But for how long?” Death continued. “How long, little King? I am owed.”

Like a spectre haunting, she appeared before him without walking the length of her hall. This was Death. This was Hela, Hel, and everything his parents had told him to fear.

“‘Tis not them you fear.” she drawled. “Your ghosts… Your enemies… Your allies.”

Her hand raised and his eyes grew wide, desperate instinct balling his fists and sparking his magic. If pressed he knew he could cheat her again. He would cheat her until Ragnarok itself.

“You fear me.”

The vision shattered.

Loki stumbled in the dungeon and yelled out in frustration, a wave of green magic erupting from his core. Two others cried in shock behind him. He spun on his heels and snatched the scepter up from the ground, swinging it wildly in front of him. Sweat beaded his brow. Madness reigned in his gaze.

Two humans, hardly more than children, were folded over on themselves. A girl in red was cradled by a boy in blue, comforted while she screamed and sobbed.

“Take care, Amateur.” Loki spat. “Lest you summon demons you cannot control.”

Even through his frenzy, he knew what he faced. Children of stones. Humans imbued with ancient power. People that could destroy them all with the proper training.

So he would destroy them first.

But the blast he cursed them with was met with another attack of light. It blinded him and another force met him square in the jaw, disorienting him and sending him sprawling on the ground. The scepter clattered on the stone as it skidded away from him.

“Thor! I need you, _now!_ ”

Cold metal hands clamped around his wrists, pinning him to the ground. Instinct led a struggle and Loki realized too late that he was tumbling with the Man of Iron.

“And I might need the Big Guy, too,” was the last thing he heard him say before a fist to the temple knocked him clean out.


End file.
